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Plantation General called me this morning to tell me that I am dead. It wasn’t news, but a relief nonetheless to hear my suspicions confirmed. That being said, I have other suspicions that I am still, in fact, alive. For example, I went running and while running saw lizards (some also running) the size of labradors. Anywhere else, I would call this definitive proof of my Death, but this having taken place in the Swamp, it seems Truly Weird enough to be real.

Once upon a time, a baby was born. She was born as perfect as any baby is born, her hope and humanity and purpose still untouched by jealousy, by undue pain, by disappointment or despair. And so, despite some hardship, she was a happy child. She loved telling stories, and acting them out for her friends. She loved animals, and kept many near her. She loved her mother and her father. She loved sunlight, and singing, and a great many things, as children do.

But this child was born with a disease, latent deep within her. It was a disease capable of robbing her senses, her sense of self, even her great many loves. But it was also a disease that could be treated. It was a bad disease, but with the love of her friends, family, and countrymen, she could be lifted from the worst of it, and continue to live in that happy way. So you understand, then, that it was a terrible tragedy that many years before this girl was born, before she was even a spark of lust in her parents’ eyes, before they were even spark of lust in their parents’ eyes, the society into which the girl was born deemed it illegal to show symptoms of her disease.

The country went up in arms recently about the US government taking and withholding children from immigrant parents. Social media was abuzz with photos, videos, and audio recordings of children crying for their parents, being herded like animals in cages, and allegedly suffering maltreatment and abuse. It was, and remains, utterly heartbreaking. The fact that people are up in arms, speaking out, raising money, and protesting these events is righteous and it’s having an effect, if a slow one. But I haven’t been able to participate much because I’ve been focused on something else–while this has gone on, my family has been forcibly separated by the US government too. My kids aren’t in cages. There aren’t massive human rights violations taking place in this instance, but there are disability rights violations taking place. My daughters are crying for their mommy too. And I don’t know when I will see them again. But nobody has taken notice. Some of you might even believe it’s just, which is a byproduct of longstanding stigma that is ruining my life.

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